The sound I heard out front could only be described as a terrific yowling. And it lasted for a minute or two, which is a long time for a terrific yowling, or any kind of yowling really. It was like the aria of a terrible atonal opera.
Finally, I got up and opened the door.
The cat bolted so fast I never saw it, just the sea grape leaves moving in its wake. But the northern mockingbird was not afraid. It stood its ground, tail held high, on the tailgate of our truck, making a loud chitting noise every few seconds which any university-trained birdsong specialist would tell you translated to, “Keep going, you Sterno bum!”
It was, I assumed, the same mocker that had been coming into our backyard and landing on the table, acting a little more like he owned the place every time.
I’ve probably phrased it this way way too many times, but birdsong is largely about sex and real estate – establishing a turf and attracting a mate. And northern mockingbirds are arguably the best singers out there.
Nightingales were once considered the most elegant and vocally facile songbird in the world, at least amongst those who felt Europe to be culturally superior to America. The Dutch-born Edward Bok, founder of Bok Gardens and builder of the 205-foot Bok Tower in Lake Wales, imported a half dozen or so to make the place more sophisticated, and to no doubt remind himself of home. His hope was that they would learn to imitate the melody of the Bok Tower carillon, a set of 60 church bells that could be played like an organ.
The birds didn’t fare well in the sub-tropical climate. At least one nightingale was killed by a rival nightingale. Another was eaten by a snake. They never mastered that carillon thing, but before they all dwindled away, they were known for giving stirring evening concerts.
Bok described one such concert in which the singing of the nightingales drew in a pair of northern mockingbirds, who sat on the roof of the aviary and listened. They returned the next night and listened again, though at the end of the second concert, the mockingbirds knocked off the entire nightingale concert note for note.
It was an impressive feat, Bok noted, especially considering the nightingale had a “repertoire of 93 notes, the largest of any bird.” Still, he judged the mockingbirds inferior to the nightingales in the sweetness and clarity of their notes and the overall quality of their singing. Then again, he made his money as the editor of Ladies’ Home Journal for 30 years, yet held the opinion that women should be neither formally educated nor given the right to vote, and should be happy living the simple domestic life at home, so maybe his judgment wasn’t foolproof. Also, how could the nightingales have the largest repertoire of any bird, when the mockingbird could sing all of their 93 notes, and then some?
Several of the older accounts I have read about northern mockingbirds describe them as the King of Song, then say that calling them the King of Song is kind of trite, then go on to say, but they are the King of Song.
It used to be believed that everything northern mockingbirds sang was mimicry, but it turns out most of what they sing are their own compositions, improvised on the spot. It’s just that, like Quiet Riot, or a lot of the bands you hear in bars, the songs that really grab you are the cover songs. I’ve heard them do convincing imitations of car alarms, cell phone rings and other electronic ephemera, and of course, birds. (The one I’m still mad about is the time a mocker did a mangrove cuckoo call and I fell for it, because mangrove cuckoos are really hard to find and I got all excited.) Their Latin name, Mimus polyglottos, means “many-tongues mimic.”
What was interesting to me the other morning about the mockingbird and cat scenario, was two things. First, the mocker managed to hold his ground against the cat, and possibly freak the cat out. It doesn’t totally surprise me, because I’ve seen mockingbirds go after dogs quite a few times. Our German short-haired pointer Elly, from a fancy bird dog kennel in Okeechobee, would not walk down certain blocks in Key West because she’d been traumatized by mockingbirds trying to chase her out of their territory. I personally have had them come at me, going so far as to tug on my ponytail, when I’ve gotten too close to a nest.
But cats are a different story. While dogs might be curious about birds as small as mockingbirds, and might harm or kill the occasional one, free-roaming domestic cats in the United States are stealthier creatures and estimated to kill between 1.3 and 4 billion-with-a-b birds every year. (People who let their cat roam free are generally convinced their cat could never do such a thing. But clearly somebody’s cat does such a thing.)
Birds like mockingbirds, kingbirds, crows, blackbirds and grackles will often gang up and mob a potential predator such as a hawk or an owl, but usually they will avoid and evade a cat before getting confrontational. So it was curious to see a mockingbird get aggressive like that, chitting and squawking and acting as if he had weight to throw around – and getting away with it.
The second interesting thing was that the mockingbird was being so aggressive before breeding season seems to have kicked in, before he really had territory, a mate, or chicks to protect. I’ve always thought that, like in West Side Story, things started with the singing, then got tough. But this seemed to be the pre-singing phase, with him policing the neighborhood, putting the riffraff on notice.
No doubt it is seasonal hormones kicking in. And I’m not sure if this is an especially aggressive mockingbird, or if I just haven’t been paying enough attention. But it’s going to be fun to watch over the next few months.
